Let me tell you about my trip to the comic shop the other day. As is my custom, I headed to Manhattan Beach’s branch of The Comic Bug on my way home from work, using the stop off as a welcome respite from the five-day a week insanity that is the Southbound 405 Freeway* at 3:00 PM on a weekday. Ah, the sights and sounds of a comic shop on new release day – it is pure, unadulterated joy to me. And on this particular day there was double the joy when I met one Andy Liegl, Sales Manager of Valiant Comics on my way to the register. Andy’s a friendly guy whose passion for comics runs as deep as my own, so within moments of his inquiry into what I had in my stack and the perfunctory small talk that revolved around the first issue of the new Luther Strode series and James Tynion, IV I knew that I wanted to hear what this man had to say. Andy had a table decked out with trades and single issues showcasing the Valiant Universe as it is today, almost three years after the re-launch that brought them back in 2012, about the same time a certain other comic company did their re-launch. But I’ll get back to that. So I inquired and Andy, Andy was only too happy to talk to me about what Valiant is doing – besides signing a nine-figure movie deal to open a movie division that is. I wanted to know about the comics, a company I’d been peripherally aware of since their inception in 1988 So Andy gave me his pitch and when all was said and done, I was impressed.